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It seems that lots of people are having problems with battery performance and buggy keyboards on their X10, as I'm seeing multiple posts and threads regarding these issues (The 2 main issues with the handset in my opinion).

You'll be glad to know that they can both be resolved (to great effect) with the help of a free app and a little manual installation guide. Read on...

Battery Performance

The X10's battery can run down real quick, especially with all that thirsty hardware (4" screen, 8.1mp cam etc) as well as the constant sending and recieving of data (via your 3G/GPRS (APN) and Wi-fi) in order to keep your Timescape and other widgets up to date. With all this going on, you'll be lucky to get 8-12 hours from your 1500mah Battery, which can lead to some people asking why they bothered buying an X10 in the first place (Because it's awesome, of course )

Thankfully, there's a really helpful (and Free) app you can install called Juice Defender. This is a fully automated power management app that has some great features for saving power. It also comes with some great widgets, one of which keeps you up to date with how much extra life you're achieving from your battery (mine is around 2.6x... but some claim as much as 4.0x!!).

It works by switching off your 3G (APN) while your phone is idle. This of course leaves you with the basic GSM/CDMA (2G) connection so you can still receive calls and texts, but it will switch your 3G (APN) back on for 1 minute in every 15 so that you can still receive e-mails, MMS's etc. When you unlock your screen, the app will instantly switch your 3G connection back on so that you can update your widgets and browse the internet without having to over-ride any settings. There's also a widget that is basically a 3G (APN) on/off button so you can quickly over-ride this action to save even more juice.

There's also some other cool features of the app, like one that will switch your Wi-fi off when you're out of range of a recognised hot-spot/router, and another that switches your 3g (APN) off completely when your battery is down to less than 15%.

It's a fantastic little app. I had to charge my phone twice a day before installing this (I'm a heavy user) but now I can go all day and still have 20-30% charge by the time I plug it in at night time.

This is an absolute must for any X10 owner and is available via the Android App store

Edit: It should also be noted that simply fully recharging/discharging your battery a number of times (5 or so) will also improve battery performance to a degree (some claim a big difference).

Keyboard Issues

Lets be honest, the X10 keyboard is very disappointing (and buggy as hell), and while the stock android Keyboard is an improvement, it's still not that great. I'm not a fan of HTC's sense UI but the HTC Keyboard is highly regarded as the best Android keyboard around, and I whole-heartedly agree.

So... sucks if you don't own an HTC, right? ...WRONG!

There's a helpful guide on how to manually install a modified version of HTC's little gem, and after doing so, I noticed a HUGE, HUGE improvement over the X10's pre-installed Keyboards. It's very easy to install and literally only takes a few minutes!

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JuiceDefender is a good app, but it's not the be-all and end-all of rectifying the X10's battery issues.

As has been brought up in the other major threads on this subject, some of the included apps with the X10 (Moxier Mail and Face Recognition Service) can be pretty battery hungry, even running in the background (which they'll do whether you like it or not. You need an app killer/task manager (I use Startup Auditor) to shut these services down and keep em that way.

It should also be noted that many users have seen significant improvement in their battery life simply by letting their battery completely discharge before recharging to full, 3-5 times.

---

As for the keyboard issues, using any of the various alternate keyboards available seems to work, as the issue appears to be with the keyboard software rather than the screen digitizer (thankfully).

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JuiceDefender is a good app, but it's not the be-all and end-all of rectifying the X10's battery issues.

As has been brought up in the other major threads on this subject, some of the included apps with the X10 (Moxier Mail and Face Recognition Service) can be pretty battery hungry, even running in the background (which they'll do whether you like it or not. You need an app killer/task manager (I use Startup Auditor) to shut these services down and keep em that way.

It should also be noted that many users have seen significant improvement in their battery life simply by letting their battery completely discharge before recharging to full, 3-5 times.

Click to expand...

Yes, I agree that you can do more to save power, but as a heavy user, Juice Defender has improved my battery performance immensely and I haven't felt the need to install anything else to further improve this.

It goes without saying that the battery needs to be fully charged/discharged a number of times to achieve optimum performance, but this is the same with any any battery

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Juice defender is not bad but changing some settings yourself I have had better results with, for example I have turned of 3G and use the desktop app to only switch on wifi when I need it, I have also put the screen brightness to half way and put updates to facebook etc to sync every 3 hours. And using that I can get around 40 hours moderate usage.

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I dont really understand the problem with the battery. Was kind of poor the first week but now, after 3 weeks i think the battery is just fine!

Click to expand...

Totally agree, my battery just keeps getting better and better. Today it's down to 95% despite being unplugged for 2 and a half hours, with timescape polling FB and twitter every 15 mins, e-mail every hour and googlemail pushing to the phone

No need for forking out for any apps on the market. Only apps I have forked out for were better keyboard (obvious reasons and I wasn't keen on the HTC KB) and remote recorder to set my sky+ from my phone

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I'd have to agree juice defender is pretty awesome, just wondering if u guys can post your settings for juice defender.. there are just so many settings, i don't know where to begin, and wow.. 40 hours thats amazing... i like having the convienence of having 3g there.. so i don't really want to shut it off, as i like to jump on the browser every now and then randomly. i just ahd a question about the quick launch bar in our right screen, so if i have wi-fi turned on on the quick launch bar will juice defender manage it? or shud i just leave it off and turn it on when need (this is wut im doing now) ?? thanks guys, awesome community here btw

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Just downloaded and installed from the market. Hopefully it would give me good results. A question for you guys, is it worth it to buy and upgrade to UltimateJuice? Or is JuiceDefender suffice?

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I don't think so. The stock settings on the free version are good enough for most people. The Ultimate version just allows you to tune the setting to your own preference, like setting 3G to come on for 1 min in every 30 instead of 15. There's a few other things in the pro version that look pretty handy but it depends whether or not you feel the need to tweak the settings to your liking.

Juice defender is not bad but changing some settings yourself I have had better results with, for example I have turned of 3G and use the desktop app to only switch on wifi when I need it, I have also put the screen brightness to half way and put updates to facebook etc to sync every 3 hours. And using that I can get around 40 hours moderate usage.

And by the way 2G is more than fast enough for facebook updates etc.

Click to expand...

That sounds ok if you're a low user but most people who buy this kind of phone will want to constantly check their e-mail and social network, as well as browsing the internet. I think it would be a bit of a nuisance to keep going into the setting to manually switch from 2g to 3g every time.

Totally agree, my battery just keeps getting better and better. Today it's down to 95% despite being unplugged for 2 and a half hours, with timescape polling FB and twitter every 15 mins, e-mail every hour and googlemail pushing to the phone

No need for forking out for any apps on the market. Only apps I have forked out for were better keyboard (obvious reasons and I wasn't keen on the HTC KB) and remote recorder to set my sky+ from my phone

Click to expand...

Firstly, JuiceDefender is free to no need to fork out anything

Facebook every 15min and E-mail every hour might be fine for you, but for most smart-phone users, that would be hugely restricting. Regarding the HTC keyboard, what exactly don't you like about it? I would say it's flawless and easily the best Keyboard you can get

I'd have to agree juice defender is pretty awesome, just wondering if u guys can post your settings for juice defender.. there are just so many settings, i don't know where to begin, and wow.. 40 hours thats amazing... i like having the convienence of having 3g there.. so i don't really want to shut it off, as i like to jump on the browser every now and then randomly. i just ahd a question about the quick launch bar in our right screen, so if i have wi-fi turned on on the quick launch bar will juice defender manage it? or shud i just leave it off and turn it on when need (this is wut im doing now) ?? thanks guys, awesome community here btw

Click to expand...

You shouldn't need to change the settings unless something isn't working well for you and you'd prefer to make a slight change. If you're happy with the extra performance, just stick with the stock settings

Theoretically, Juice defender should switch off Wifi when you're out of range of a recognised router/hot-spot, but I like you use the manual on/off switch via the quick launch bar. If this is working for you, just stick with it

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Facebook every 15min and E-mail every hour might be fine for you, but for most smart-phone users, that would be hugely restricting. Regarding the HTC keyboard, what exactly don't you like about it? I would say it's flawless and easily the best Keyboard you can get

Click to expand...

Juice defender is free but as I understand it is a cut down version of ultimate juice which is also mentioned in this thread and isn't free. Startup auditor also mentioned in this thread is also not free.

My post said I had facebook and twitter every 15 mins on timescape with e-mail polling every hour (purely for timescape purposes as the gmail app doesn't seem to sync with timescape) and gmail pretty much pushing to my phone. Also have facebook app polling every hour and seesmic polling every half hour (though I am not using the new seesmic widget as that did drain my battery)

Today it's been unplugged nearly 7 and a half hours and is down to 76% with some browsing, checking and reading e-mail, sending a few texts and wifi left to it's own devices using the default sleep profile on the phone (sleep when screen is turned off) and 3G data turned on and all the background polling mentioned above. Also had a quick play with the turn by turn navigation which now works in the UK

Personally I think any results people are getting from using apps like juice defender (which must also one would presume run in the background therefore also taking up some power) are more likely down to the battery performance increasing as its charged and used more. That's certainly been my experience without running any form of power saving app free or otherwise

As for the HTC KB, don't get me wrong, it is miles better than the standard or android keyboards on the X10 and certainly the best free keyboard I have found. There were just a few things that niggled me about it, can't remember what as its a good 2 weeks or so since I last had it on my phone as I forked out for better keyboard and have been happy with that since

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Not to hijack this thread but what is the keyboard you feel is better than the HTC?

Click to expand...

As I said in the post you quoted the keyboard I use is "better keyboard". I prefer it to the HTC one but that is just my opinion, though again in my opinion the HTC one is the best free keyboard I've used on the X10

Who knows, there might even be some crazy people out there who prefer the default keyboard though they probably work for SE as the people who designed the thing

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As I said in the post you quoted the keyboard I use is "better keyboard". I prefer it to the HTC one but that is just my opinion, though again in my opinion the HTC one is the best free keyboard I've used on the X10

Who knows, there might even be some crazy people out there who prefer the default keyboard though they probably work for SE as the people who designed the thing

Click to expand...

Hey Dave - I tried looking for both of those keyboards in the market and couldn't find either of them! Are the exact names for each "BETTER KEYBOARD", and "HTC KEYBOARD"?, and are they both free??

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Just regarding the battery issues, my battery life is definitely getting better.

Yesterday I unplugged my X10 at ~86%. Spent the entire evening and night (8 hours straight) listening to music through bTunes, surfed the web over 3G through various programs on my way home from work, took a 5 minute call, turned on WebSharing via WiFi for about 15 minutes, downloaded some apps, read some emails and messed with the phone for a while, and then watched 30 minutes of Dexter in high-resolution. Battery died just as I went to bed.

This morning I unplugged at 7:30 and checked the weather via WeatherBug. By 8:30 when I got to work and plugged it into my laptop to tether it was still at 100% battery.

It seems that lots of people are having problems with battery performance and buggy keyboards on their X10, as I'm seeing multiple posts and threads regarding these issues (The 2 main issues with the handset in my opinion).

You'll be glad to know that they can both be resolved (to great effect) with the help of a free app and a little manual installation guide. Read on...

Battery Performance

The X10's battery can run down real quick, especially with all that thirsty hardware (4" screen, 8.1mp cam etc) as well as the constant sending and recieving of data (via your 3G/GPRS (APN) and Wi-fi) in order to keep your Timescape and other widgets up to date. With all this going on, you'll be lucky to get 8-12 hours from your 1500mah Battery, which can lead to some people asking why they bothered buying an X10 in the first place (Because it's awesome, of course )

Thankfully, there's a really helpful (and Free) app you can install called Juice Defender. This is a fully automated power management app that has some great features for saving power. It also comes with some great widgets, one of which keeps you up to date with how much extra life you're achieving from your battery (mine is around 2.6x... but some claim as much as 4.0x!!).

It works by switching off your 3G (APN) while your phone is idle. This of course leaves you with the basic GSM/CDMA (2G) connection so you can still receive calls and texts, but it will switch your 3G (APN) back on for 1 minute in every 15 so that you can still receive e-mails, MMS's etc. When you unlock your screen, the app will instantly switch your 3G connection back on so that you can update your widgets and browse the internet without having to over-ride any settings. There's also a widget that is basically a 3G (APN) on/off button so you can quickly over-ride this action to save even more juice.

There's also some other cool features of the app, like one that will switch your Wi-fi off when you're out of range of a recognised hot-spot/router, and another that switches your 3g (APN) off completely when your battery is down to less than 15%.

It's a fantastic little app. I had to charge my phone twice a day before installing this (I'm a heavy user) but now I can go all day and still have 20-30% charge by the time I plug it in at night time.

This is an absolute must for any X10 owner and is available via the Android App store

Edit: It should also be noted that simply fully recharging/discharging your battery a number of times (5 or so) will also improve battery performance to a degree (some claim a big difference).

Keyboard Issues

Lets be honest, the X10 keyboard is very disappointing (and buggy as hell), and while the stock android Keyboard is an improvement, it's still not that great. I'm not a fan of HTC's sense UI but the HTC Keyboard is highly regarded as the best Android keyboard around, and I whole-heartedly agree.

So... sucks if you don't own an HTC, right? ...WRONG!

There's a helpful guide on how to manually install a modified version of HTC's little gem, and after doing so, I noticed a HUGE, HUGE improvement over the X10's pre-installed Keyboards. It's very easy to install and literally only takes a few minutes!